Context is important when reviewing pro-wrestling shows, especially ECW ones, and extra especially (is that a thing?) a show like Wrestlepalooza 98'. ECW was the "outlaw promotion" of the Big 3, but by 98', it was pretty clear that Paul E.'s favorite target was WCW. This is unsurprising. Vince had given ECW a spotlight on Raw in 97' and, conversely, used Paul E.'s creative mind to help him recast guys like Al Snow later that year (its not entirely clear what his contract status with the WWE, but I believe he was still technically getting paid by Vince while working in ECW). Meanwhile, Heyman's ire for WCW seemed to be based mostly on not only his own treatment by the company earlier in the decade, but also the company's "raiding" of his talent (most notably Stevie Richards, Raven, and Perry Saturn in 97', but also guys like Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Psychosis, Dean Malenko, Chris Jericho, Public Enemy, and countless others who Heyman unreasonably believed would stick with him despite much better deals with WCW).
Regardless, this show was billed as ECW putting on a show in "enemy" territory and kicks off with a fun tag match between The FBI (Tracy Smothers and Little Guido w/ Tommy Rich in tow) vs. the debuting team of Nova and The Blue Meanie. I think Joey Styles should've leaned a bit more into Smothers and Rich's history with the NWA considering the locale, but the FBI's gimmick was so over independently of their history that it didn't matter. Nova is competent in the ring. Little Guido is competent in the ring. Tracy Smothers is great at every aspect of pro-wrestling. Blue Meanie, aside from his killer moonsault, is not good. He doesn't really need to be good, though, because this match is mostly comedy and is loaded with some really goofy spots (including the referee bodyslamming both members of the FBI because he gets caught up in the nonsense). Traditional wrestling fans would find this all a bit too goofy, but wrestling is a variety show and I liked the Three Stooges hijinks. Unfortunately, when things get more serious, things get less interesting and drag a bit with some of the sequences looking noticeably sloppy. Even the dance contest in the opening minutes - a genuinely fun concept - is ruined a bit by nobody going fully over-the-top with it. (2/5)
At the Living Dangerously pay-per-view, Mikey Whipwreck returned after suffering a broken leg at the hands of Justin Credible, who was peeved that Whipwreck had ended his unbeaten streak. This led to a grudge match between the two here that might be the first Credible match that I've really liked. Credible throws himself into every big bump throughout the match and Whipwreck brings the intensity by going after the guy with rights and lefts and leg sweeps and whatnot rather than doing any of his usual high-risk high-flying. At one point, Justin Credible goes over the guardrail and lands on what looks to be a 13-year old kid. Why on Earth would you bring a middle schooler to an ECW show? I like that Whipwreck gets in a ton of offense and even gets to hit some moves on Credible's entourage but that Credible, who was getting a push, ends up with his arm raised cleanly. I wouldn't call this "must see," but its very good. (3/5)
Axl Rotten and Balls Mahoney challenge the ECW Tag Team Champions - Chris Candido and Lance Storm - in the next match. Candido and Storm still hated eachother so there's some fun with the pre-match shenanigans, but once the bell rings, they're both competitors and want to win (which is not the easiest dynamic to get across, even with the added threat from Paul Heyman that, if they were to try to screw each other, they'd both get fired). As Styles notes on commentary, Axl Rotten is actually a skilled technical wrestler and this match does mostly focus on that side of his game rather than the brawling and weapon-based offense that he and Balls Mahoney were more known for. The crowd is into some of this, but the minute they see a chest chop, they erupt into a "Free Ric Flair" chant, the loudest chant of the match. You almost feel bad for the competitors over it because they really work hard in this match, really trying to offer something resembling a traditional tag and not over-relying on weapons or blood or big spots. At a little over 10 minutes, it doesn't overstay its welcome and the finish makes sense and continues the Candido/Storm rivalry. Not bad at all. (2.5/5)
Before the next match, Joey Styles welcomes a slew of "hardcore legends" - The Junkyard Dog, the Masked Superstar, "Dirty" Dick Slater, and "Bullet" Bob Armstrong. JYD gets the biggest reaction and while the Masked Superstar was a huge deal in the 70s and 80s, I think the audience - even in 1998, even in Georgia - was a bit too young to really recognize how big the Masked Superstar was and would've probably reacted bigger to him coming out as one half of Demolition (though it would've made much less sense). Anyway, for all their WCW bashing, this came across as the kind of segment WCW put on their PPVs in the mid-90s.
Shane Douglas makes his way to the ring for an interview. He cuts a promo bashing the WWE - and more specifically Shawn Michaels and the Intercontinental Championship - and then goes after "Dick" Flair. Shane's point is that other wrestlers stay home when they're injured, but he's tougher than that and will deliver a great match later that evening. Taz interrupts him and says that, just like Michaels handed Douglas the IC belt years earlier, its time for Douglas to hand over the ECW Championship to Taz. Its an awkward segment because it comes across as Taz not wanting to beat Douglas straight-up. Taz ends up putting him in the Tazmission and Douglas clearly taps out, but before Taz can do any more damage, he's carried away by security. In the aisleway, he ends up brawling with Bam Bam Bigelow again. Eventually, Taz is put into a Cobb County Police car, he kicks out the window before getting driven off. Aside from the awkwardness with Taz demanding Shane hand over the title (a very heel perspective to have as it comes across as borderline cowardly), this was a good segment and a clear inspiration for the kind of stuff the WWE would be doing with Austin (and had already been doing) in the summer of 98' and on and on...
Bam Bam Bigelow waits in the ring for his opponent, New Jack. This is a really fun match, though, like any New Jack match, it doesn't really tell a story as much as its a garbage brawl leading to a big balcony dive. The fun here is that the guy New Jack is working with is Bam Bam Bigelow, who was very over in ECW and brought a real legitimacy to the company based on how big of a star he'd been in WWE. Bigelow and Jack trade weapon shots and Bam Bam seems to have no problem selling for the much less trained/talented New Jack. New Jack ends up a bloody mess as they brawl in the crowd and eventually Bigelow gets cut open too. New Jack was never going to win this match and I'm not sure he even goes for a pinfall the entire "contest," but he still looks tough for standing up to Bigelow and taking a ton of punishment. Eventually New Jack ends up on the balcony with a guitar and comes down onto Bigelow, but the spot doesn't look good as the guitar doesn't really connect that well and the most damage looks like it was done to New Jack's ankles as he lands on the concrete feet-first. Instead of doing something different, they really should've done "the usual" and had New Jack put Bigelow through a table or something - or have New Jack put himself through one. Bigelow basically shrugs off the guitar smash, lifts up a limp New Jack, and carries him into the ring to hit him with his finisher and end the match at well under 10 minutes. This was never going to be a mat classic, but what really hurt this was the flat finish. Everything else is sloppy but effective brawling and the crowd was super into it, which boosted things a little. (2/5)
After a video package, its time for The Dudleys to take on the team of Tommy Dreamer and the Sandman. While the other two tag matches on this show kept things *mostly* in the ring and followed traditional rules, this is an ECW brawl with anything and everything going. Joel Gertner's introduction gets cut off by the arrival of the babyfaces (who have a pre-match beer bash). I like how Sandman is selling his neck injury by struggling to drink a beer. Oh, the humanity. The big set piece in this match is part of the guard rail, which is a nice change of pace from the usual tables and chairs. Sandman gets taken out of the action after a bump that re-injures his neck and this becomes a 2-on-1 match. The Dudleys get a ton of heat for beating down Dreamer, which leads to a huge ovation when Spike Dudley runs out to even the score. Big Dick Dudley, Sign Gun, and Beulah McGillicutty all get involved and the crowd loves every minute of it. Sandman comes back into the fray and him and Dreamer get the big babyface victory after hitting stereo DDTs. This was in that good-not-great territory where its hard to point at any specific segment or stretch being boring or ineffective, but at the same time, it was just everything you expected and nothing more - which is kind of silly because Spike Dudley's run-in was a surprise. The issue here really is that ECW brawls like this one were fairly commonplace, so it usually took some real insane spots and weapon usage to make them feel "extra special." (2.5/5)
The next match is for the ECW Television Champion as Rob Van Dam defended the strap against his former tag team partner and best friend, Sabu. I'm not going to go too far into detail about the background for this, but one of the big questions was whether Bill Alfonso would manage RVD or Sabu. Before the match, Alfonso reveals that his plan is to manage both. Sure. The match starts with some fun technical, mat-based wrestling (though, its definitely not at the level that, say, Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero had busted out 4 years earlier in the same company). Then, Rob Van Dam grabs a mic and basically announces this was all a ploy and that they wouldn't actually wrestle each other and the fans are too gullible...but then Sabu "double-crosses" him by attacking him when his back is turned. Why did they do that? It just makes no sense and adds nothing to the match because Sabu doesn't really do anything else extra heelish and Rob Van Dam certainly doesn't work like a babyface who had been betrayed either. They just proceed to have the exact same kind of match as most people expected they would, a series of escalating high spots that are spread out with minutes of boring nonsense. I'm a bigger RVD fan than lots of other wrestling critics, but, at this point, he really didn't know how to build a compelling match from beginning-to-end (and maybe that's why he wasn't nearly as over as he would become in future years?). The fact that this goes for 30 minutes is wild because it really could've been shrunk down to 20, if not fewer. (1.5/5)
Main event time - Shane Douglas defending the ECW World Championship against Al Snow. This may have been the peak of Snow's entire career, but even this match does not come across as worthy of being the headline match on a PPV. Because of how long the Douglas/Taz rivalry had gone on, it also feels like a placeholder title match until Douglas was healthy enough to face Taz. Anyway...this match is nothing special but its not terrible either. The crowd is way more into chanting obscene things to and about Francine than they are the match itself. They botch what I assume would've been the big spot of the match (Douglas spinebustering Al Snow through 4 chairs) and there's really nothing else all too remarkable that happens. Towards the end, Candido and Bigelow show up and Al Snow takes them both out. I would've liked to see more of Snow being the underdog and overcoming the odds to build towards a false finish or two, but for whatever reason, the pieces and parts are there but don't add up to make for a satisfying, suspenseful match. (For example, when Snow does hit his finisher, it gets almost no response at all.) The other thing that doesn't make much sense is the post-match "celebration." It feels totally unearned because Al Snow, while he was obviously over with the ECW fans and was seemingly respected backstage, didn't win even a moral victory over the Triple Threat. It was just a weird scene that looked forced to my eyes. According to rumors, the plan was for Snow to win the title - mostly because Shane was injured - but I'm not sure I buy it (Snow wasn't given the W because, days before this event, the WWE re-hired Al Snow). (1.5/5)
With a Kwang Score of 2.14-out-of-5, Wrestlepalooza 98' is not a show I'd go out of my way to see. The main event feels irrelevant and undeserving of being a PPV headlining match. Sabu/RVD starts out as idiotic-but-entertaining and then just becomes tedious. The Dudleys/Dreamer and Sandman match is perfectly fine "garbage wrestling," but there's nothing really special about it despite the relative star power. Bigelow/New Jack had the potential of being a "curio dream match," but doesn't deliver. When Justin Credible has the best match of the night on a show, that's just a bad sign.
FINAL RATING - DUDleyville
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